


Not Quite Narcissus

by icarus_chained



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Dancing, Devotion, F/M, Love, Lutecest, Requited Love, Spoilers, adoration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 03:19:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10179500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: She is beautiful. Rosalind. Perhaps it is somewhat Narcissian to think so, but then again perhaps not. She is more substance than mere reflection, after all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is an odd one for me, but my sister had me watching her play through Bioshock Infinite recently, and I _absolutely adore_ these two. Especially Rosalind. So I wrote a quick thing, because that's how I deal with things. Heh. Though Robert/Rosalind is a bloody complicated relationship to give appropriate warnings for without spoiling things.

She is unutterably beautiful. Rosalind. Delicious beyond words. He wonders idly if it is better or worse to think that when they are as they are, rather than if they truly were the siblings they call each other. He does lean towards _better_ , himself, but one cannot deny a certain element of arrogance to the presumption. Perhaps he ought to have a word with Narcissus one of these days. He feels he might have a thing or two in common with that dashing but unfortunate Greek fellow.

Perhaps. And yet also ... perhaps not. 

Narcissus' reflection never reached back to him, after all. Never knocked on the pane of the universe, dots and dashes across infinity, and rippled the surface until he could step through to the world beyond the mirror. The poor dear hadn't had the substance for it. The reflection Narcissus fell in love with was only ever an image. Rosalind ... Rosalind is so very much more than that. Incalculably so. Beyond compare.

She's hard, is his Rosalind. Unyielding, to any in creation but he, and even then only on a good day. There's more than their gender to separate them, much as she might often wish to deny it. Not only her fatalism either. There's steel in her that he's never found within himself, and coldness too. Dispassion, is perhaps the word. She's very particular about the objects of her passion, is Rosalind. She shouldn't like to waste it on the wrong things. Rather, the wrong _people_. Which, it must be said, is most of them. 

But not him. Never him. To him she gives all the passion in the universe. In several, really. Only those universes themselves have had as much from her, and perhaps not even them. She has, after all, intimated a time or two that she might be persuaded to give them up for his sake. Indeed, she has stated, and _proved_ , that there truly is little enough she would not sacrifice for his sake. Next to nothing she would not do, would not give, to have him near. 

Is that selfish of her, he wonders, or self _less_? The epitome of either, perhaps. Of _both_. Oh, what a wonderful thing they are. Heads and tails, palms meeting on the pane of infinity. How truly perfect they have become.

It's prideful to love her. Of course it is. How could it not be? And yet it isn't either. It's ... it's selfless. It's inexorable. She is all that he might imagine of himself, all that he might fear, all that he might love, and she is herself as well, distinct from him, substance rather than mere reflection. She is hard where he is soft, stalwart where he is vacillant, fatalistic where he is hopeful. She is dispassionate where he is guilty. She is kind when he might despair.

Can he help but love her? Can he really? She is not his sister, and neither is she his self. Surely, then, there is no crime? Or, if there is, one too vast and too impossible to ever really be judged. She is beautiful, his Rosalind. She is cold. She is kind. She has reached across universes for him. She has cradled him when he has fallen, she has poured her blood into his veins, she has grounded his mind in her music when all else has been lost to him. She has _yielded_ , to him as to no one else, and softened herself to spare him from his guilt. She has died with him, for him, and let it stop them in their purpose not at all. How can he answer that with anything but love? How could anyone?

There's a devil's bargain in that, perhaps. On her part as much as his. Or maybe a god's bargain either. But not Narcissus, he thinks. No.

Narcissus has never been as fortunate as he.

"You're thinking again," she drawls beside him, light and amused. Knowing him, as she knows herself, though caring at once rather more and rather less for his dilemmas than for her own. "Anything you'd like to share, brother?"

He chuckles, and draws her gently near. An arm around her waist, as if in preparation for a waltz. She smiles at him, ever so superior, and rests her hand lightly on his lapel. He smiles in turn, delighting in it. In her.

"Only gods, dear sister," he says. "Nothing important enough to trouble you."

Nothing important enough to trouble either of them, really. 

And she knows that, of course. Thinks that. Has always thought that. Gods are nothing to her. Never have been. Nor universes either. Ever since that knocking, knocking, knocking on the pane of infinity, only one thing has ever troubled her, and all else she troubles with only for his sake. He should be ashamed of that, he thinks. He should be proud. To split the difference, he supposes he shall be both, and also neither, and all the happier for it. 

She reaches up. Here, now. Traces his temple, his cheek. Brushes her thumb across his chin. His lips. He feels them curve under her ministrations. He feels them yield, to her as she to him, and to no one else in all the worlds. She laughs, and leans up into the kiss. He bends, and lets her have him. She is delicious, as always. His sister and his self, neither and both. His Rosalind, beyond compare.

"What need have I for gods?" she asks, when she settles back onto her heels, her hands light against his shoulder, his lapel. Gentle only because he might despair. "Dearest Robert. Isn't it enough that I have you?"

Indeed. Oh indeed. Enough and more. There is nothing beyond either of them, so long as they have each other. He has learned that, since coming to her. He is happy now to say so.

"Indeed," he says, holding her gently. "Perfectly sufficient, my dear. For the both of us."

And oh, there is softness there for that. There is a tremble, where once she had despaired. His heart echoes it helplessly. He draws her close, into his chest, their hearts knocking against each other's ribs, dots and dashes across the pane of the universe. He holds her near, as she has held him, and guides her gently through a fresh opening of their waltz.

She is sufficient, yes. Always. Of course she is. More than sufficient. Incalculably so. She's _Rosalind_. 

How, he wonders now, could she ever have been anything else?


End file.
